Could You & Other MBAs Reach Trump on Climate’s Urgency?

Posted by Felix Kramer5sc on December 01, 2016

Climate.MBA has launched to activate students, alumni, faculty, and administrators in America’s 700 business schools. The goal? To start talking about the business and other consequences if the U.S. delays or derails strong action on climate change.

Business voices have a shot at getting through tothe Trump transition team and incoming appointees on this single most important issue. (Donald Trump is a businessman; Ivanka and Donald Trump, Jr. both have MBAs.) We hope this approach willbreak through preconceptions,energize thousands, and encourage growing numbers of C-level executives to go beyond Business As Usual.

Our plan: sign up conveners among the 150,000 business students to organize and promote Emergency Climate Teach-Ins and send an Open Letter on Climate to decision-makers. The theme: “What will our country do about climate in 2017?” Read more details at Specifics.

It’s even more of a long shot at exam time, but we hope to spark a competition among business schools. Who will be first to announces a December 17 or 18 event? Of course Wharton, where Donald Trump has an economics BA, and Donald, Jr. and Ivanka have MBAs, would be a home run!

We started thinking about this in mid-November andgot immediate support from Liz Maw, CEO at Net Impact, with 100,000 business-focused members. We put together this basic campaign site at in one day. Next:

This week Net Impact sent an invitation to its hundreds of chapters (including 125 MBA chapters) to organize climate events in Dec-Feb. Responses are already coming in.

We’re working on partnerships and reaching out to organizations for endorsements and announcements to their networks. (Can you suggest any?)

We’ll recruit event organizers and conveners of students and alumni at the schools where we can get going most quickly and have the most impact.

Chances are you know people now in business school, or MBA alumni who could step up. Please forward this message or point them to http://Climate.MBA. Reach out to colleagues, friends and family, who will know others. Please like "climatemba" at Facebook and follow us on Twitter, and share and comment this message at Medium or LinkedIn Pulse.

If this effort succeeds, participants could look back on otheir efforts as one of the biggest differences they ever made in the world!